Philocrites

What? No religion reporters?

by Philocrites

The Boston Globe's unusually empty article yesterday about President Bush's religious rhetoric must have been written by a reporter who doesn't pay much attention to religion. He compares bin Laden's jihad to Bush's "crusade." He tells us that Muslims are divided about the war on terror, just as Christians are divided about war with Iraq. He quotes a liberal academic — Harvard's David Little — who raises questions about the president's theology, and an Evangelical political activist who sees the president in the "role of a healer, a role of a priest in consoling the nation in the loss of lives."

I'd think an Evangelical who sees the president of the United States as a "priest" is a story all to itself, but this is only small potatoes to the article's strangest moment:

The frequent use of religion in Bush's speeches also comes amid a conflict within religious circles on whether to go to war against Iraq. Pope Jean Paul II has spoken against a war and for a negotiated peace, as has the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.

That's right, folks. The Boston Globe, which has printed so many thousands of words in the past year on the crisis in the Catholic Church, spells the pope's name wrong. I cannot believe that a copy editor would have changed "John Paul II" to "Jean Paul II," so I can only assume that the writer made this error. The Globe features terrible religion coverage, but this is bizarre.

Meanwhile, for a slightly more thorough story, see last week's New York Times story; my comments here.

Copyright © 2003 by Philocrites | Posted 17 February 2003 at 1:24 PM

Previous: Confronting Professor Singer.
Next: How scared should we be?